


Four Years

by kikibug13



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-13
Updated: 2013-04-13
Packaged: 2017-12-08 08:47:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/759435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kikibug13/pseuds/kikibug13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four Years after Damian's death, Leviathan is finally ready again to take over the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Years

**Author's Note:**

> One more fix-it fic for nU. May become multi-chapter.

It took Talia years. Years to bring her plans back to the point where they could come to fruition. 

It took her months to rein in her younger son alone, and that was a complicated to process that involved anything that she was capable of. She did not want to wipe that slate clean. She could not.

Not after what he had done and when she was left with nobody.

But time and patience and knowing her work and how to alter it can work miracles. Slowly, in patient, nerve-racking days that she should have taken _before_ she put her plan in execution (it had been perfect timing, she thought, but, oh, how wrong she had been) and in small steps that seemed to get nowhere for weeks, she persevered. 

Seven months after Damian died, Fatherless was her own, again. He lived to do her will, and he knew it right and just.

She did not punish him for the live he had taken (there was no punishment enough), but she kept a much tighter leash on his actions, after that. He was in an adult's body, but, much more than Damian ever had been, Fatherless was a child. A fact she had forgotten. 

A fact that had caused her to kill blood of her blood, and of _his_ blood, even indirectly, and made her in something little better than her Father was. Fatherless had acted in precise accord with what he had known, what she had told him and taught him, with the instincts she had bred and trained into him. He had seen the perfect opportunity, and he had acted on it. 

Her plans (her life, her heart) had needed to be redrawn, after that.

Eighteen months after Damian died, they finally took a shape that wouldn't crumble to dust at a cross look. 

Twenty-three months after Damian died, Talia's plans were in shape that even her Beloved could not disrupt. Finally. 

Four years, three months, and seventeen days after Damian died, Talia was attacking Gotham again. This time, there were no hitches. Her Beloved was feeling the toll of his losses, of the life he had been living. The death of his son had scattered something small and precious with which he had held his allies close, too, and they had scattered. He pushed them away, and they seemed to be staying away. Of course, they came when he called.

But they would not fight with the kind of dedication the had used to. The kind of dedication he had inspired before three of his Robins perished and he was helpless to save them, the kind of dedication that Damian had been the epitome of.

Gotham was fracturing out of his black-gauntleted hands, and he was grasping, but she was finally going to show him how wrong he had always been. How foolish, and how blind. 

The streets were almost hers.

Then, she knew not why, the tide turned. 

Strands of her plan that her Beloved could not touch started unraveling. First one, then another. Then a whole slew. There was somebody else that they were all rallying behind, and she could not find out _who_ it was. Beloved's allies were all accounted for, disabled or cornered off or overpowered. She had made sure of it, this time. And, yet. Something, someone, was muddying the waters. 

It was not one of Bruce's _League_ allies, either. She had made sure to keep them occupied, as well, until she could pluck them off, one by one. Not in the least by resources she would acquire from Beloved's Cave and other locations he currently had protected but would be hers to access, soon.

No. This was somebody else. Somebody who knew her game, too, who could plan against her with the sort of brutal force that Beloved could (but not him) and yet the flexibility that the circus boy sometimes displayed (but not him, either, she had eyes on him at all times). In fact, news started filtering to _him_ , and she could see an alarm close to her own light up on his masked face.

And then it drained away. To pallor, then to calm. More than usual, the bratty orphan's motions were ones of joy and that was _just. not. acceptable_.

Then her video feed cut off. Entirely, at the same moment, all three sources. Then the entire block.

Talia growled. Then sent for Fatherless. 

"Is it time, Mother?"

"It is time, son. Now, they shall know us."

"No."

The voice was very similar to Fatherless's... but younger. The figure they turned to look at was hauntingly familiar, if lither, lighter, less bulked-up than Fatherless, and still shorter. The costume was slick and - a black and white that Talia was familiar with, if not for over five years. Since she had let her son first know his Father. Since she thought her Beloved lost forever. Since her son - her first son - shed it for a silly uniform of colors that attracted far more attention.

And now he was back to the one she gave him. 

Now he was back to her.

He was alive. 

"Damian."

"Did you think it would be so easy for you to get rid of me?"

"How--"

" _Not_ for you to know that. But, now, my Mother. Now, my Brother, my twin. Now - now _you_ shall know _me_."

By all rights, five years of training should have given Fatherless as much an advantage as they had given Damian.

As she knew in her heart of hearts that it would not be, it wasn't so. 

Her first-born had always been perfect with the way he commanded his weapons and his body; now he was like a wraith. Though not a deadly one - only undefeatable. He cleared down Fatherless in a few efficient motions, and the man-child found himself sitting down on the ground, staring at the palms of his hands as though they were the greatest miracle in the world. Greater than they should have been, even. 

Her bodyguard fared no better, some ending up with slashes or breaks, others with hits that they couldn't focus their eyes after, or keep their stomachs. 

Her, Damian left for the end. 

He fought her easily, calmly, elegantly. Only the firm line of his mouth suggested that it cost him something to do it.

Not a word was uttered. 

Until she was losing consciousness on the ground, and he leaned down, taking off his mask. There were tears it had hidden. 

"Happy birthday, Mother. You lose."


End file.
